Within the healthcare field, automated hand sanitizer dispensers are placed in rooms and hallways of medical facilities to encourage healthcare workers to perform hand hygiene before and after caring for patients in order to prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs). However, there are situations where healthcare workers cannot properly disinfect their hands and prevent HAIs through the use of an automated hand sanitizer dispenser. For example, a healthcare worker caring for a patient afflicted with a health condition known as Clostridium difficile, which is more commonly referred to as C. difficle, must use soap and water to remove bacterial spores from their skin to avoid transferring the infection to another patient or coworker. Therefore, in order to prevent healthcare workers from using automated hand sanitizer dispensers while caring for patients identified under contact precautions for C. difficile, medical facilities have personnel manually remove the hand sanitizer product from dispensers within a predetermined proximity of rooms in which patients are resident. However, as the number of patients affected by C. difficle increases, compliance with the current practice proves difficult and burdensome for personnel. Thus, more efficient systems and methods are needed for controlling the use of automated hand sanitizer dispensers at a medical facility based upon health condition data of resident patients.
Further, systems and methods for controlling the use of automated dispensers at a medical facility are needed wherein automated dispensers include but are not limited to automated hand sanitizer dispensers. As an example, automated gloves dispensers are placed in rooms and hallways of medical facilities so that healthcare workers can obtain latex gloves prior to treating a patient. However, since medical facilities lack systems and methods for limiting the use of automated gloves dispensers to healthcare workers, patients and visitors alike can obtain latex gloves. As such, an economic loss occurs each time someone other than a healthcare worker uses an automated gloves dispenser. Thus, systems and methods are needed to control the use of automated dispensers at a medical facility.
Still further, systems and methods are needed for controlling the order in which automated dispensers are used to facilitate compliance with workflow procedures. As an example, a healthcare worker preparing to treat a patient must perform hand hygiene prior to obtaining latex gloves in order to reduce the likelihood of the patient acquiring an HAI. However, medical facilities lack systems and methods for causing healthcare workers to use an automated hand sanitizer dispenser before an automated gloves dispenser. As a result, healthcare workers can obtain latex gloves prior to disinfecting their hands, which increases the likelihood of transferring contaminants from their hands to the latex gloves and ultimately the patient. Thus, systems and methods are needed to control the order in which automated dispensers are used.